Survival of the Fittest
by George H
Summary: In a world without Buffy, Spike does what he must to survive. (slash content)


**Survival of the Fittest**  
a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fanfiction  
by George H.  
25 November 2002 - 12 December 2002; 10 February 2003  


    The night-tasted bitter black, and smelt like pungent clove cigarettes laced with Death. It didn't matter that smoking was illegal; he disregarded the law as was his wont, and indulged anyway. The draw of smoke through his lungs helped to let him know he could still breath, even if he didn't need to. It wasn't as if anyone alive was around to stop him, in any event. The air was thick and misty grey as the sea fog rolled in, but the unwelcome cold went unnoticed. Somewhere in the expanse beyond, restless waves beat themselves endlessly upon the desolate shore, but he couldn't hear or see them for the abysmal dark. He spat his smoked cigarette butt onto the ground, and watched the flickering amber end burn out hot against the cracked dirt. It seemed the dying ember was the only point of illumination in the blackened shell-remains of the city. Overhead, what stars remained hid behind a concealing veil of angry, dark, cumulous clouds, smoky ash, and pollution. He languidly pushed off the crumbling building he was leaning against, and took simple personal satisfaction in crushing the glowing clove cigarette into black nothingness with the heel of his boot.  
    "Littering again, Spike?" a sarcastic voice asked plainly from behind.  
    Spike turned languorously, and looked at the speaker with darkly hooded eyes, but said nothing in return; nothing needed to be said. Lights were made to extinguish, and they were no exception. Spike moved forward gruffly, his moment of peace broken by the arrival of the other, walking away from his companion. The blond headed towards the jagged cliff that overlooked the remains of the costal city. He innately knew he was followed.  
    They stood together on the perilous edge, looking down at the gulf of black that subsisted below. "Do you suppose anyone is alive down there?" Spike inquired, offhandedly. His companion did not move, and was silent for a long time. Spike finally glanced over, making out his companions sharp, gaunt features in the darkness.  
    "Why do you care?" the other finally asked, warily.  
    The blond sneered at the accusatory tone, stepping back off the rock onto broken dirt, and growled. "Because I bloody want to eat!" he hissed viciously, and stalked up to his partner until they were almost nose-to-nose. "Is that what you want to hear? What the fuck do you think? Fuck me! I just want to know if we're the only ones _not_ dead in this god-forsaken city!" His companion gave him a severe, pointed glare, and Spike shrugged his shoulders noncommittally as he backed off, "Undead then."  
    "Probably," the other replied at last, his voice as dull, and monotone, as their cityscape. "This place looks wasted: debris everywhere, no lights, no sounds. I can't even smell anyone." Spike looked his companion over, and then peered back down the cliff, remaining silent for another five minutes.  
    "Why do you have to be so damn suspicious?" Spike finally asked in a muttering whisper as he hunched his shoulders, although his eyes didn't wander from the desolate cityscape below. "Haven't I proved myself good enough for you yet? I mean, you fuck me readily enou--" he was cut off as the other hissed, and the two exchanged tensed glares. "Well you do," Spike muttered darkly, and averted his eyes. "I mean, what's a vamp got to do to prove to his mates that he's not about to go bite the neck of the first human that happens by? I do have a soul you know."  
    "Soul or not, you're still a monster."  
    "Oh, and you're the bleeding Queen of England, right? You've killed plenty yourself. Don't go preaching me that old bullshit."  
    "We've discussed this. It's through. This place is dust, and we will be too if we stay much longer. The sun is starting to rise. I'm going inside, and you should too." Spike's companion had replied in such rapid succession the blond couldn't formulate a reply, and then the other turned to go.  
    Spike reacted fluidly in the dark, trained from years of experience, and grabbed his partner's hand, jerking him back, harshly. "I don't like that answer," he growled throatily. "I think we ought change your mind about it." Spike manhandled him closer, until their mouths roughly crushed together from the force. Spike took dominance, and forced things hard, enjoying the aggressive side of this, as his partner struggled against his restricting embrace. It had been nearly three hundred years since their first kiss, and despite the years, kissing him still managed to make Spike desire to act the same way he wanted to act the first time they kissed. Today, conversely, would be the day he actually acted upon those pent up feelings.  
    Angel pulled back forcefully, and shoved Spike away as he did. "Not now," he muttered blackly, and attempted to pull away completely. Spike's only reply was a lecherous grin.  
    "Oh, c'mon Angelus, if the cat's not going to get fed, he might as well get to play," he teased, tugging at Angel's shirt where it was tucked into his pants. Angel sighed, and looked away to the left over Spike's head, disenchanted, as if he saw something more interesting off in the distance. Angel always avoided eye contact like this, and Spike once used to wonder what the man pretended he saw. He knew now it was just some figment of a shattered memory that let him get through with it. Spike tilted Angel's chin towards him, and growled. "Getting starry-eyed already?" he taunted, mirthlessly.  
    Angel's brows furrowed, displeased at the toying he was the butt end of, and he attempted to pull away from Spike's constricting arms once more. "What, don't want to do it on the pretty, broken, ground?" Spike mused, pursing his lips tautly. "Afraid you'll get your pretty little coat dirty?"  
    Angel sneered at all the crude comments Spike was making, but refused to act against him. He knew he was getting angrier, and angrier at each jest, and fought to keep that anger controlled. Spike had perfected how to play Angel, and once he was angry enough, Spike could manipulate just about anything out of him he wanted. "Not tonight, Spike," Angel flatly said, again, and jerked his arm out of the blond vampires cold grasp. Free at last, he turned his back to Spike, and began stalking towards the ruined building that they had made their day's home.  
    Spike lazily watched Angel's retreating form, as it was swallowed by the shadowy blackness of the collapsing building. He spit disgustedly after a moment, and wiped his mouth, glaring at the place Angel had vanished into nothingness, before stalking predatorily after him.  
    "You fool well know better than to walk away from a horny vamp, Angelus!" Spike shouted into the echoing darkness. His voice fell dampened and lost amoung the rotted boards and piled filth in the ruins. His ears picked up the scurrying of a moving something that could only be Angel, and he stalked it. "I haven't asked all week, yet," he coyly added, smirking at his own inner thoughts.  
    "It's Monday," Angel called from somewhere beyond. Spike altered his direction to the sound, letting his eyes adjust to the even darker interior; the building certainly was larger than Spike had first anticipated.  
    "I stand by my word!" Spike answered loudly, grinning. "Hell, you don't know if it's Monday, or the Fourth of July, you rat! Who keeps track of that nonsense anymore, anyway? I just know I haven't had a roll in a while, and my loins are itching." He chuckled darkly as he ducked instinctively under a fallen roof beam.  
    "Itch them yourself, then."  
    "Well, that's no fun, Love" Spike countered in a pouting voice. "Hello, where does this place end?"  
    "Over here," Angel answered with a quiet beckon. Spike growled, growing impatient, and then he felt Angel's hand on his chest, effectively stopping him. "We should be sufficiently covered from the sun here," the brunette vampire assured him with an unconcerned voice. Spike stepped away from the offending hand.  
    "What sun? The best we get here is a pasty grey soup that barely makes my eyes water." He couldn't see Angel because of the night, but he could imagine the other's unamused expression. Sighing in resignation, Spike settled down on what felt like soggy, wadded paper. He didn't want to know what it really was. He patted around halfheartedly for Angel, finally felt him, and scooted closer out of decades of habit. He curled beside him silently for several minutes, before he muttered, "We're going to have to find _something_ to eat tomorrow."  
    Angel didn't respond for a long time, but Spike knew he wasn't asleep. When the other vampire finally did answer, his voice was a low, thick whisper. "I know." Angel was unbelievably still hung up on not killing humans to survive. He had all kinds of remorse at doing so in his soulless past, and he had let it utterly consume him, until he was just an undying shell. Spike, on the other hand, felt it was a survival of the fittest, and in a real Hell on earth situation such as theirs, he felt even less compassion for killing to secure his own well being. He regretted plenty, and he wished he didn't have to drink blood at all, but he knew people didn't hate the lions for eating the gazelle, so why should he hate himself for killing a few humans, especially if he only did so to keep himself alive? Death was a welcomed relief for most of the living they found, anyway.  
    He nuzzled up to Angel as he rolled onto his side, his nose bumping the under side of Angel's chin, his lips pressed lightly against the other man's Adam's apple. Angel sighed defeated, and raised a loveless hand to rest on Spike's back. It was decades of habit that made them sleep together this way, although they both knew there was little love between them. Each served only to be a companion to the other, and to help keep memories both suppressed and accurate. Angel hated Spike for loving Buffy after he had been forced to leave her. Spike hated Angel for loving Buffy so openly and acceptingly. When they had sex together, neither thought of anything but her. It was only because of Buffy's closeness to Spike at the end of her life that made Angel remain with Spike. Where the blond had grown to fear death, and strive for life after the Slayer had died, Angel had lost his very will to continue on. Without Buffy, Angel saw little reason to keep existing, but Spike would never let him give up.  
    Spike nipped at Angel's throat lightly, placing a tender kiss as compensation afterward. Angel swallowed once as he tried to remain still, and Spike let his tongue trace the path Angel's throat took as it constricted. One of Spike's hands rose, trailing indolently over Angel's stomach, until it found the tight pulls of buttons lined down his chest. With fluid dexterity Spike nimbly unbuttoned two, until he could slip his hand inside Angel's shirt, and tease the skin underneath.  
    Angel tilted his head a little to the side, exposing the length of his neck. "I told you, not tonight," Angel muttered unpersuasively, and Spike simply trailed his mouth from Angel's throat to the side of his curved neck.  
    "It'll happen tonight, Love," the blond breathed into Angel's ear as he easily slid his hand out from under the shirt, and began unfastening the brunette's belt. Spike shifted, bracing himself slightly on his arm, so his other hand could easily operate the buckle and buttons keeping Angel's pants closed. He grinned enigmatically as he finally felt Angel starting to respond to his touch as he worked the zipper on his pants down. "Easy now," Spike ribbed, as he let his lips tug at Angel's ear. The older vampire never enjoyed Spike's sexual games, but he knew from years of experience that if he tried to resist at this point Spike would turn very violent, so he had ceased trying to resist.  
    There was no more talking until Spike had practically moved on top of Angel, and was manhandling his erection in a way the blond must have thought was fulfilling. Angel was groaning softly at the efforts, but he did not move to further the experience. Spike's grip was hard, tight, and forceful, and while it once might have excited Angel, it had long ago ceased to be anything but a hated chore. "Do you miss her?" Spike unpremeditatedly hotly hissed into Angel's ear.  
    Angel jerked a little at the unexpected voice, and groaned unintentionally. Spike changed his method, and Angel's knees went up as his legs spread a little. His head reclined to the side as he tried to form coherent thought. "What?"  
    "Buffy," Spike growled, as he pressed harder against Angel.  
    Angel swallowed hard as he felt Spike was bringing him near his climax. He knew the drill well, in that Spike got off in torturing him. The blond would toy with him until he was about to orgasm, and then prolong the event as much as he could, and instead watch Angel fight not to finish the job himself. "Of course I miss Buffy," Angel rasped at last, squeezing his eyes tightly shut at the thought of her seeing him like this. That was impossible, for she was many years' dead, but some part of him felt that she would still know about how diminished of a man he had become because of Spike, and he hated himself, and the blond for it.  
    Spike felt a hot fire burning inside him, and he ran his tongue over his teeth sensuously as Angel strained beneath him, contemplating Spike's words. "Tell me you loved her," Spike demanded abruptly, his face rising so he could better manipulate Angel. He relished in the shuddering sounds Angel made, and the way the older vampire's body jerked with his touch. Angel finally twisted against Spike, actually trying to pull away.  
    Talking about loving Buffy while Spike was giving him a hand job made Angel's stomach roll. He could take as much abuse from Spike as the other could dish out, but thinking about such a wonderful past memory while doing something as degrading as this tainted the memory. "Fuck you, Spike," Angel spat back, a faint glimmer in his eye.  
    Spike sat up and used the arm he'd been supporting himself with to wipe his face clean of Angel's spittle. "Feisty aren't we?" he finally countered after a moments reflection. Then he grabbed a fistful of Angel's hair, jerked his head up, and slammed it back onto the hard floor. "Now say it."  
    Angel writhed at last, determined to pull away from Spike. There were times when he got too aggressive for his own good, and Angel was the one to suffer the consequences. If Spike was somehow jealous over Buffy again, Angel knew he was in for a beating; possibly a few broken bones. He had lost his will to fight back the day Buffy had died. "Piss off," the brunette growled, and then grunted as Spike slammed his head into the ground again. The blond's hand released him as he shifted to effectively pin Angel down.  
    "Say you loved her!" Spike commanded, angrily.  
    Angel twisted and groaned as Spike positioned himself on top of him, so that his every movement sent mixed sexual pains and pleasures coursing along his body. When Angel again refused to reply, Spike took his hand away from pinning Angel's arm, and let it take up the stroking he had formerly abandoned. In a sinister, but softer voice he crooned, "Would you have died for her?"  
    "I would have," Angel gasped as his back arched at the touch.  
    "Then tell me you loved her!"  
    "I loved her!" Angel hissed at last as he reached his orgasm, and tears sprang to his eyes. "I loved her longer, sweeter, and deeper," he panted, "than you possibly could ever hav-!" Angel's shout died on his lips as Spike silenced him with a vicious, tearing bite on the jugular vein at Angel's throat, shredding veins as well as vocal chords. Spike felt Angel's shock register stiffly through his body as he came off his orgasmic high into this surprising end. The momentary disorientation from orgasm had put the brunette off-guard enough not fight back until it was already too late.  
    Spike drank hard and greedily pinning Angel down into the cold earth long after the other had ceased to struggle. He shivered involuntarily as he heard Angel's dying groans, gurgling raggedly so near his ear, but he did not pause to think, until after the body beneath him was still and dry. Only after he was certain that not enough blood remained in Angel for even a mosquito, did he retract his fangs and pull up. Beneath him, the earth turned, and the sun rose, and with it a milky light stained the world grey outside, filtering into the ruin in motes.  
    Spike could barely make Angel's still figure out beneath him, but he was certain that the other would never again move on his own. He bent over Angel's face and studied the frozen features for several long moments, then he whispered in a strengthened voice, "You're wrong," before he kissed Angel's lips, smearing the brunette's blood against them, and finished with, "I loved her more."  


The End 


End file.
